


The Lovers, The Dreamers, And We

by taispeantas_laethuil



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aftermath, Dragon Age Big Bang 2015, Drama, Elven Feels, F/M, Family, History, M/M, Mommy!Lavellan, Post-Game, Sloth Demon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 00:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3999826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taispeantas_laethuil/pseuds/taispeantas_laethuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dorian and the Bull flail about their feelings, the Inquisitor flails about the future, and Calpernia doesn't flail about the spy in her breakaway Venatori cell, but might gesticulate forcefully a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lovers, The Dreamers, And We

She was busy cleaning her weapons when she heard Solas approaching. It had been a successful hunt, if a more eventful one than the clan had anticipated: their hunt for rams had been interrupted by a great bear. It had been a fierce fight, but the clan’s hunters had been victorious, and they would eat well tonight, and for many nights after.

But it had still been messy, so she continued to clean the gore from her daggers as her lover drew nearer.

“How did your talk with the Keeper go?” she asked, holding her blade up to the light for inspection. She caught a glimpse of the expression on his face and had to chuckle. “You didn’t open with the true history of the _vallaslin_ , did you?”

Her blades were clean. She sheathed them, and turned to face him, adding as she did so “We did talk about this. No matter what they were before, they’ve become a symbol of our independence and-”

“ _Da’len_ ,” Solas interrupted, reaching out for her.

The endearment made her smile, as it always did- she was hardly a child, and with forty behind her and growing ever father, she was barely younger than he- and she took his hand.

That was when she noticed that it was covered in blood. That all of him was covered in blood.

“Solas?” she asked. But even as she did so, she remembered. _No matter what comes, I want you to know what we had was real._

Her hand tightened around his, and she pulled him nearer with a snarl. “You thin-blooded-”

He opened his mouth- _harden your heart to a cutting edge_ \- but whatever he said was lost in the realization that if that had been real, if his leaving had been real, then what was this?

She dropped his hand. He closed his mouth.

“Are we in the Fade?” she asked.

“Yes,” he told her, smiling a little in pride, always so proud of her, like a child learning a new skill. _Da’len_. The endearment turned sour.

“I don’t suppose there’s an explanation coming?”

“It’s a demon,” Solas said. “A powerful demon of sloth. It has the entire population of Skyhold under its power.”

“It… what? Everyone?” she demanded. “There are nearly three hundred people living in Skyhold, and visiting dignitaries, and merchants, and-” _All those people_.

“Everyone, save for Cole and the Tranquil,” Solas elaborated. “He has been able to coordinate the Tranquil in an effort to keep your bodies alive, but in the meantime, the demon has only grown more powerful. It needs to be stopped, and soon.”

“How long?” How long have we been under? How long do we have left? How long have you been close enough to Skyhold to walk in my dreams? How long until you explain yourself?

“I cannot say exactly. It will depend on how successful we are,” Solas said. “I have some idea of how to proceed, if you would hear me.”

“We’re in the Fade,” she reminded him. “This is your area of expertise.”

He made a move as though he was going to reach out to her again, but thought better of it. “Very well then. We should split up. You should find the other members of your Inner Circle, who will be trapped in their own mindscapes, guarded by demons, much as you were.”

For the first time, she realized how silent it was around them. Unnatural. Unnerving. Unnecessary, for him to have killed them for her, even if the demons had taken the form of her clan members, because what else had they been?

“I’ll wake those who can perform similar tasks for their own circles of close peers, and then go after the loners. Once the demon’s hold on your people has been broken, his powers will cease to grow, and he can be killed.” He waited for a moment, and then added, in a pained tone of voice. “We don’t have much time, _ma vhenan_.”

“I know,” she said.

He turned to leave, and it was her turn to reach out, grasping him by the arm and forcing him to turn back and face her. “Will you ever tell me? How you thought things should have happened?”

For a long moment, he was silent. Finally, he said “I have no doubt that I will.”

It wasn’t exactly a promise, but she still let him go, and left her dream behind.

\---

The first mind she visited with Leliana’s, which was a stroke of good fortune for everyone. Leliana had already fallen prey to a sloth demon’s tricks before, during the Fifth Blight, and knew exactly what was happening and how to react. The moment she arrived, Leliana put an arrow through the eye of the shade wearing Divine Justinia V’s face, and one short, almost laughably easy battle later they were stumbling into someone else’s mindscape.

It took the form of Skyhold, but a Skyhold that had been destroyed: not the long-abandoned ruin it had been when Solas had lead them to it, or even the shaky ad hoc state things had been in after their final battle with Corypheus, but one that had been utterly destroyed. The destruction wasn’t in the buildings, but in the bodies, the scorch-marks, the eerie quiet that made her breathing sound too loud in her ears.

The first noise she heard was from the direction of the tavern, and she suddenly knew who it was: this was the Bull, the Bull gone Tal-Vashoth just as he dreaded.

But she was wrong. The figure that came stumbling out of the tavern and started heaving was human, not qunari.

“Dorian?” she called out.

Dorian jerked, and spun around. For a moment he just looked, wild-eyed, his gaze darting from her to Leliana and back again. “No,” he said at last. “No. Don’t- play dead. Just- you don’t understand what he’s done, you have to-”

“Dorian?” came the call from the battlements.

Perhaps she should have recognized his voice. Perhaps she should have guessed who it was when Dorian immediately started chanting “No no no no no.” But it still gave her a moment’s pause when Magister Pavus descended the stairs.

“What did I tell you, Dorian?” he said.

“Father, please,” Dorian begged. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him do that before. “I’ll go back to Tevinter, I’ll- I’ll get married, to Livia or- or whoever else you choose, please don’t-”

Magister Pavus raised his arm, a dull red glow emanating from his eyes, and a pink mist that made the air taste of iron enveloped Dorian.

Blood magic. Of course it would be blood magic.

“It’s time you put these silly schoolboy fantasies away,” he said. “Finish the job.”

Dorian’s face was a picture of anguish as he raised his staff. Leliana took cover, firing at his father, while Lavellan darted around him to stab his through the back. The moment the demon came under attack it revealed its true face and Dorian froze.

The battle wasn’t as easy as it had been in Leliana’s dream, but then, Dorian wasn’t helping them. He stood there, until the thing posing as his father was killed, and then dropped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut, staring mutely at the fragment of robes that remained from the desire demon that had been wearing his father’s face.

Lavellan sheath her daggers and crept down the stairs, approaching him carefully. He didn’t move a muscle until she’d reached his side, and touched his shoulder.

“How long do you think he was like that?” Dorian asked, looking up at her with an utterly wretched expression on his face.

Not for the first time, she was forcibly reminded that he was closer in age to her children than herself. It was so easy to forget normally, until something happened to make him vulnerable.

“He isn’t,” she told him. “We’re in the Fade, Dorian, none of this is real.”

“We’re in the Fade,” Dorian repeated numbly.

“It’s true,” Leliana confirmed from behind him.

“None of this real,” he said, adding with an involuntary look back at the tavern. “They’re all still alive?”

“Yes.”

“I-” He wiped his face on the back of his arm, and then stood. “I’m not sure if I believe you.”

“Think back, Dorian,” Leliana urged him. “How did your father arrive?”

“I-” Dorian frowned, and then bent down to pick up his staff. “You know, I can’t recall.” He shook his head, before looking back at her. “How did we end up in the Fade?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “The upshot is that there’s a sloth demon that’s overtaken the entire Inquisition- almost everyone at Skyhold.”

“What?” Dorian said, some of his usual witty flare returning to his tone. “Everyone in Skyhold? That’s not good.”

“No, it isn’t, and we still have to rescue the other members of the Inner Circle,” she told him. “Once everyone’s awake, we can kill it and leave.”

“I thought you said it had the whole of Skyhold?” Dorian asked. “Not just the Inner Circle?”

“The others are being looked after,” she explained. “We just have to worry about our own little group.”

“Well, then,” Dorian said, affixing a smile to his face. “You’ve rescued me, so what are we waiting around here for?”

\---

Finding Leliana, and then finding Dorian was a matter of luck- she only had the vaguest idea of where the mindscapes she wanted to enter were, and none whatsoever of who was in them. The fact that there were obvious entrances and exits was a matter of convenience that she suspected was designed only because they looked like eluvians.

They looked like eluvians to her, at least. She wasn’t sure what Leliana or Dorian saw, and asking didn’t seem as important as trying to navigate them successfully. To that end, she let Dorian go first, hoping that as a mage he would have some idea how to handle himself here.

She wasn’t sure if he did, but he lead them into the eluvian with an air of supreme confidence and out into the Bull’s mindscape, so it certainly seemed that way.

The Bull was also in Skyhold, though it was more like the Skyhold she had learned to call home. They were on the battlements, overlooking the tavern, which was alive with light and the sound of the Charger’s singing.

The Bull himself was just leaving the tavern, his arm wrapped around what looked to be a happy, affectionate, and only somewhat drunken Dorian with very mussed hair.

Next to her, the real Dorian shifted uncomfortably.

“-gotten into you?” they could hear the Bull ask. “You’re never this nice!”

Whatever the demon told him didn’t carry, but made the Bull laugh and amend his statement. “In public. You’re very nice in private, but not in public. What gives?”

“Do I need a reason?” the demon asked, smiling brightly and grabbing him by the horn.

“This is the Bull’s nightmare?” Dorian asked in a very strained tone. “A clingy, less put-together version of me?”

“This isn’t a fear demon we’re dealing with,” she reminded him. “I don’t think the Bull’s mindscape is a nightmare. Mine wasn’t. Neither was Leliana’s.”

“It’s a sloth demon,” Leliana chimed in. “It only wants your fear if that’s the best way of paralyzing you. If there’s something else that would work better…” she trailed off, as the Bull stopped moving in favor of letting the Dorian-shaped demon climb him like a tree, kissing passionately.

“As is evidentially the case,” Lavellan said, waving her hand in front of Leliana’s face to refocus her attention.

“At least Sera isn’t here to witness this. I’d never here the end of it,” Dorian sighed, and fairly flew down into the courtyard, taking the stairs three at a time.

“Really, it didn’t even get my moustache right!” he protested to the Bull once he’d reached ground level, though how he could tell Lavellan wasn’t sure.

“Aw, fuck,” the Bull cursed, pushing the fake Dorian off of him. “I knew there was something fishy going on!”

That was when demons started pouring out of the tavern in form of fanged-and-clawed versions of the Chargers. It was more shades than they’d needed to deal with in either Leliana’s mindscape or Dorian’s but the fight was still over quickly: Leliana’s arrows, her daggers, Dorian’s magic, and the Bull’s axe made quick work of things.

“Next time Krem tells me to go easy on him about the demon thing, I’m going to dock his pay for a month,” the Bull grumbled once they’d explained the situation. Well, once she and Leliana had explained the situation: Dorian remained uncharacteristically silent until they’d left the Bull’s mindscape.

\---

One not really quick and easy trip through the mindscapes of Sera, Josephine, Varric, and Cassandra later, Solas reappeared and nearly had his head taken off by the Bull.

“I thought you were waking up the rest of the Inquisition?” she asked him, stepping between him and the others before anyone could try attacking him again.

“I’ve run into a complication,” Solas said.

“Uh, boss?” the Bull asked. “Is there a reason you’re acting like you’ve forgotten that Solas left?”

“Yes. There’s a sloth demon currently feeding off of the entire Inquisition,” she reminded him. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten what he did, but right now we need his expertise.”

There was such a profound silence from her friends after that statement that she could have sworn that she heard Solas’ discomfort grow.

“ _Vishante kaffas_ ,” Dorian cursed, finally breaking the spell. “I don’t suppose he’s explained anything.”

“He’s explained how we’re getting out of this one,” she told him- told all of them. “And he’s about to tell us what sort of complication he’s run into.”

“I need to borrow the Bull for a moment,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere with you until I’m sure you’re not going to try and possess me,” the Bull protested.

“And that’s not an explanation,” she pointed out.

Solas sighed, and then looked up to address the Bull directly. “It’s your lieutenant, Cremisius Aclassi.”

“What about Krem?”

“I thought he would be the best choice to wake up your Chargers,” Solas said. “Unfortunately, there’s a demon that Ser Aclassi keeps… unintentionally giving power to.” He paused. “A demon in the shape of a woman.” He paused once more, and when that information failed elicit the response he was looking for, he added, “A demon in the shape of a specific, non-existent woman, who under different circumstances might be assumed to be his long-lost twin.”

“Oh,” the Bull rumbled dangerously, as Dorian made a dismayed noise and pulled a face.

Solas looked at the mage, who quickly added “That’s just… a bit uncalled for, isn’t it?”

She turned to stare at him, as did Leliana.

“It’s a demon,” Sera, whose mindscape had only been marginally less heinous than Dorian’s, reminded him. “What, did yours invite you for high tea?”

“ _This_ demon did not,” Dorian admitted. “But-”

“I think you understand why I thought your presence would be beneficial,” Solas interrupted him, turning back to the Bull.

“Yeah, I do,” the Bull sighed, hefting his axe.

“Who do you have left?” Solas checked, craning his neck to see. “Vivienne, Blackwall-”

“No Blackwall,” she cut in. “Unless he made a surprise visit I can’t remember, he’s with the Wardens now.”

“We don’t even know if he survived the Joining,” Josephine added quietly.

“So just Vivienne and Cullen then,” Solas said. “I’d… try to do Vivienne first, if I had the choice.”

Sera guffawed, and he spoke over her, adding quickly “Cullen’s mindscape is likely to be difficult. His previous experience with demons makes him an attractive target.”

“Will you help us with that fight?” she asked him.

“You might not want to wait up for us,” he said. “As more and more of his intended victims slip from his grasp, he’ll only guard the remainder more jealously.”

She nodded. He returned the gestured, and left, the Bull following him with a call of “If I come back possessed, I expect you to kill me.”

Vivienne had already determined that she was in the Fade, killed all the demons in her mindscape, and narrowly avoided colliding with them when they entered her realm. In hindsight, she’s not sure why any of them expected anything different.

\---

Cullen’s mindscape was, as promised, a total disaster. They found him kneeling on the floor of what Leliana identified as Kinloch Hold, looking painfully young, surrounded by growths of raw lyrium while a desire demon in full Templar armor- one who Varric later confirmed had more than a passing resemblance to the late Knight-Commander Meredith- lorded over him.

She turned out to not be their biggest problem: Cullen was, as he was convinced that everyone not in Templar armor was a demon, when really it was the other way around. Wave after wave of demons, attracted to his emotional distress, came after them as they tried to talk him down without either killing him or getting themselves killed, and it wasn’t until he found himself fighting alongside two demons in forms of a Ser Alrik and a Ser Karras that they made any headway at all.

Even so, they’d cleared the area before the Bull and Solas returned.

“It won’t be long now,” Solas assured them, and then left.

“Perhaps we should wait somewhere a bit more neutral?” Dorian suggested.

They shuffled off to Lavellan’s mindscape, still eerily silent but otherwise peaceful, and waited, cleaning their weapons and licking their wounds until a faint rumbling noise sounded from all around them and the mindscape broke apart, revealing the sloth demon: a huge deformed monstrosity, just elf-looking enough to unnerve.

Save for the Nightmare, it was the biggest demon she had ever seen. Under the combined might of the Inquisition’s forces, however, it took about three minutes to kill.

\---

She went to visit Cole first, to thank him. He looked tired, with bags upon bags under his eyes. “I think I need to sleep now,” he said earnestly. “I really think I really do really need to sleep. Really.”

“Really?” she couldn’t resist asking.

“ _Really_ ,” he replied seriously.

“You can sleep in my quarters tonight, if you wish,” she suggested. “It’ll probably be quieter there than in here, above the tavern.”

“I hope so,” Cole said. “I really hope so. Thank you. I’ll go there now.”

He left in a hurry. She went downstairs to talk to the next person on her list: Sera.

Sera’s mindscape had been about the Blight- specifically, about the Purge that had happened in Denerim’s alienage during the Blight.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sera said as she entered the little nest she’d made for herself. “You’re thinking that you’ve found some secret elfy part of me and now we’re going to have elfiness in common. And you can piss right off.”

“Well, I figured the elfy nature of your mindscape was bothering you,” she said as lightly as she could. There was something very sad about how fast Sera ran from being an elf, made all the more sad by how she would never accept any condolences for it. Mostly, she just tried to avoid the topic. “I also figured you might be missing Blackwall more than usual, and need a friend.”

Sera sat upright, unshed tears glistening stubbornly in her eyes and refusing to fall. Not for the first time, she was reminded that Sera was, in fact, some years younger than her children.

“Yeah. Well, the broody beard wouldn’t be focusing on the elfy bits, would he?” she said. “He’d just want to know if I knew the Hero of Fereldan before she went heroing about, wouldn’t he?”

“Did you know her?” She had seen the Hero- thin like a dagger’s edge, and barely old enough to qualify as a woman rather than a girl in her eyes, even with her deadly competence and face tattooed- thrice and never stopped hearing about her after. But one of those times when the fighting in the Denerim alienage had been at its thickest, and though she wanted to ask where Sera had been then, she knew Sera would never answer it directly.

“’Course I did. Everyone knows the Tabris family- big people in the alienage, but like, always making trouble for the bigger people outside of it, so it sort of balanced out, y’know?”

Sera had a few stories to tell about the Hero, things that came out in vague drips and drabs until she excused herself to take a walk out on the roof. Lavellan smiled, and made her way downstairs, where the post-demon party was still in full-swing.

Not that either the Bull or Dorian seemed very aware that there was a party.

“You two gentlemen having fun?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at the number of mugs scattered before them.

“I made out with a demon,” the Bull said morosely.

“It was like I was my own bloody simulacrum,” Dorian hissed at exactly the same time. “Worse. It was like I was my _father’s_ own bloody simulacrum. I had no control, I couldn’t stop myself, I couldn’t even scream.”

Krem, who was nearly invisible on the Bull’s other side, made a strangled gurgling noise, and knocked over a mug, causing a chain reaction that ended up with Lavellan juggling three mostly-empty mugs while ale seeped into her breeches.

“I think we should call it quits,” the Bull said.

“That seems like a wise decision to me,” she replied.

“Can I stay with you tonight?” Dorian asked. “Not to-” Here, he made an overly complicated series of hand gestures. “- but just to sleep.”

“Yeah, of course,” the Bull said softly, before adding in a more normal tone. “But we’re going to need to drop Krem off first.”

“Thank you,” Dorian replied, and somehow the three of them managed to weave their way out of the tavern without knocking anything else over, leaving her to clean up the mugs.

\---

Leliana’s agents had done a thorough search of the sloth demon’s remains and anything that looked to be connected to it, and come up with a box patterned in strange interlocking shapes that had been identified as a form of Arcanum- the language more commonly known as Ancient Tevene. They were fairly certain that the demon had come from the box, rather than the box arriving with the demon, or the two things just being a coincidence. Naturally she headed off to the library to ask for Dorian’s opinion about all of that, but her favorite Tevinter Altus was not in his usual spot in the library. The Bull was.

“Dorian’s blowing off steam on the training grounds if you need to speak to him, boss,” the Bull informed her, not looking up from the book he was reading.

“You’re wearing a monocle,” she said, because he was wearing a monocle. “Why are you wearing a monocle?”

“Well, I’ve only got the one eye,” he drawled. “That makes wearing specs kind of pointless.”

“Right,” she said uncertainly. She really should press on with the demon in a box problem, but she was curious, and this was not usual behavior for either the Bull or Dorian. “Is there a reason you and Dorian have decided to switch places, or did that just happen?”

“It just happened,” he said. After a moment, he put the book down, allowing her a glimpse of the title _\- A Good Magister: The Life and Work of Adralla of Vyrantium_ \- and asked “Did Dorian ever talk to you about the blood magic ritual his father was trying to do to him?”

“A little bit, just after his father lured us out to Redcliffe,” she said. “Has he talked to you?”

“A little bit- but not like he did last night,” the Bull replied, adding after a moment, “What did he tell you about it?”

Lavellan frowned, and then leaned against the bookcase, partially blocking the Bull from view and giving them a bit of privacy- or the illusion thereof at least. She thought the Bull would appreciate that. “He said that it could have left him a drooling vegetable, that his father had to have been very desperate, and that he’d always hoped that he hadn’t meant to go through with it. Why, what did he tell you about it?”

“About the same, before last night. Last night was different. The illusion the sloth demon made up for him- it was bad, wasn’t it?”

“Very.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she’d first thought that it’d been his nightmare, his fear of becoming Tal-Vashoth, but that seemed like a bad idea.

“It certainly spooked him pretty bad,” the Bull said, adding after a long moment, “He was worried, about hurting me. About being made to hurt me.” There was a longer pause before added, “He said that if it ever turned out he was being controlled like that, it was possible that killing the caster wouldn’t end the spell. It’d be like being possessed- the only way to end it would be to kill him.”

When it become obvious that he hadn’t paused so much as stopped speaking, she asked “And what did you say to that?”

“He wouldn’t go to sleep until I promised to do it, if it came down to that. So I promised. But I hesitated, boss,” he told her in a rush, like a confession. “And if I ever had to actually go through with it- I think I’d hesitate again.”

“That’s understandable,” she said.

He snorted. “No, it isn’t. If someone asked you to stop them if they turn into a monster, you say yes. You do it. It’s just better that way.”

“Better than what?” she asked.

The Bull shook his head- carefully, so as to not destroy the back of Dorian’s chair. “Look, let’s hope that nothing like _that_ ever happens to the ‘vint. Dorian’s terrifying when he wants to be, and- and I think I got too close to this one.”

With that, he deliberately lifted the book and started to read again, apparently unwilling to talk any more with her.

Lavellan left him to it, and went out to find Dorian.

\---

Dorian was, as the Bull said, blowing off steam on the training ground. Specifically, he was stabbing one of the training dummies with his staff blade hard enough that it would have disemboweled it, had it had bowels to begin with.

“Trying to break Cassandra’s record for practice dummy destruction?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied shortly. “And I’ve been informed that using magic is cheating, so.” He yanked his staff free with a grunt. “You wanted to speak with me?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, looking pained. “Let’s go somewhere else for this conversation,” he said, already walking away.

They ended up on the roof of the watch tower, looking out over the mountain pass that lead to Skyhold.

“I’d like to apologize for-”

“If you try to apologize for having an emotional reaction to how the demon trapped you, I swear, I will have Dagna find a way to create some kind of vocal impression of me yelling about how terrible your father is and mail it to him.”

Dorian opened his mouth and then closed it again. He repeated this process a few times, before sighing, some of the tension leaving his body. “That is a very entertaining mental image,” he said at last. “Thank you.”

He clearly still had something to say, so Lavellan waited. Hopefully the box wasn’t going to unleash any more demons on Skyhold in the next hour if Dorian didn’t take a look at it.

“I should break it off, shouldn’t I?” he asked after a moment, which was not something she’d thought to hear. “The Bull and I, I mean.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

“It- when it started, he was very clear. ‘This goes on for as long as you want it to. I’m good with light and casual’ and at the time I didn’t think that was going to be a problem. But last night I,” he snorted, and turned to face the mountain pass. “You were there. It was like I was five years old and just starting to attract demons with my dreams.”

“The Bull didn’t seem to have a problem with it,” she pointed out.

Dorian snorted again. “He humored me, because that’s just how he is. It doesn’t- it’d be too easy to read into-”

“Before you continue,” she interrupted him as gently as she could. “I just need to know whether or not you’re aware that the Bull’s currently sitting in your chair in the library, freaking out about the fact that he got ‘too close’ and would now hesitate to kill you if you got possessed.”

Dorian spun around, gaping. After a moment, he turned back to look at the mountains, then up at the sky, and then back at her before managing to get out “He… _what_?”

“Admittedly, it’s a very subtle freak out,” she told him. “But it’s noticeable, which says a lot coming from a man whose reaction to an assassination attempt was to remark that he’d hurt himself worse fooling around in bed.”

“I don’t quite know what to do with that information,” Dorian admitted. He certainly looked like he was having trouble wrapping his head around the concept.

“He doesn’t appear to know either,” she said. “But if you want my advice, I would talk to him before making any decisions.”

“That’s- yes. Yes, I should,” he said, straightening up. “Thank you.”

He hurried down the ladder. After a moment Lavellan followed him.

\---

Dorian hesitated on the stairs, forcing her to wait in the hall for a while before she could enter the rotunda. She pulled herself as silently as she could up onto the scaffolding that Solas had left behind and waited.

As usual, sound carried down from the library extremely well. “I don’t know why this surprises me,” Dorian said. “Every time I think I have you figured out you go and pull out some new facet of yourself I never even considered you having.”

“Well, every time I think I’ve got you pinned down, you go and tie yourself up into knots all over again, so I guess that makes us even,” the Bull replied.

There was a moment of silence and then Dorian said, very firmly “ _Katoh_.”

“What?” the Bull asked, sounding as surprised as she had ever heard him be. “Why are you-”

“You heard me. _Katoh_. You don’t get to turn this around and make it entirely about me and my issues, not now,” Dorian said. After a moment of what certainly sounded to her like stunned silence, he added. “Just this once, mind, I’m generally all about me but- but this has to be about the both of us.”

“I- all right. Sure,” the Bull said, not sounding at all sure. “Do you want to have this conversation here, or somewhere else?”

Dorian thought about that one for a moment before he decided on “Here.”

Lavellan thought she understood: ‘somewhere else’ would probably be either Dorian’s room or the Bull’s, spaces that after months of ‘a whole lot of something’ would be a space of _theirs_. Dorian, who spent so much time projecting supreme confidence in himself and was still occasionally surprised to find other people buying the act, wanted this conversation about as much as he was dreading it, and therefore they would have it in a space they both recognized as _his_.

She’d had similar thoughts, from the other side of things, when she was scrambling to figure out what had gone wrong with Solas, when everything had seemed to be going right. She came to him, in his domain, rather than inviting him into hers, in the hopes that he would be more forthcoming.

Hopefully, this would work out better for Dorian and the Bull than it had for her and Solas.

“I was considering breaking this off, you know,” Dorian said, slightly rushed. “Not because I’m dissatisfied with how things are between us, but because I…”

“You what?” the Bull asked gently, when Dorian failed to end that sentence with anything more coherent than some annoyed huffs.

“I wouldn’t be happy, if it ended now. But I could walk away. Later… later might be harder,” Dorian explained. “I _like_ you. You are utterly, bewilderingly likeable. It only gets worse from here.”

They were silent for a while, before the Bull said, “There’s no romance under the Qun.”

“I know that,” Dorian said, when the Bull failed to say anything more. “I’m not sure why that applies to what you feel or don’t feel here and now, but that’s fact about Qunari society of which I was aware.”

“I don’t know how that applies either,” the Bull admitted. “Except that it means that I don’t have a frame of reference for this, Dorian.”

“Well, I’m not much better off,” Dorian said. “Romance is a concept I grew up with, but it’s mostly theoretical- it doesn’t actually manifest very often. Most relationship and marriages in Tevinter are unhappy things created a matter of consolidating power. And when it comes to two men, it’s always purely physical. You learn not to hope for more.”

“Wait,” the Bull said, the chair creaking as he moved, probably sitting up straighter. “You’ve never had sex with someone you cared about as a friend before?”

“No, I have,” Dorian assured him, with a strained sort of airiness. “It just- it always ends badly, in my experience. You always have to hide in Tevinter, and that puts a strain on things, and the fear of discovery drives a wedge between the two of you. Or the morning after comes and it turns out you weren’t such good friends after all.” There was perhaps two seconds of silence before he added, sounding very annoyed. “Oh come on, really? Now?”

“What?” She was really learning quite a lot about how the Bull sounded when he was confused from this eavesdropping session.

“You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you’ve just figured out something new to try in bed.”

“There’s a look? Wait, Dorian, this is important: I’ve got a _tell_?”

“It’s not a tell, it’s a look. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“But you can recognize when I’m doing it?”

“Yes, I’ve got vested interest in such looks, as you might imagine!” Dorian paused for a moment before adding “Yes, that look, the one you’re making right now.”

“Dorian,” said the Bull, sounding very serious. “If you walked away now, I’d still care for you. I’d still toss an extra blanket into your tent, I’d still want to go out drinking with you, and I’d still listen when you wanted to ramble about the food you miss from the north.”

“ _Hui_ ,” was the sound that eventually left Dorian’s mouth. It might have been an attempt at a word, an attempt at not saying a word, or just a sharp inhalation. It was difficult to tell from the scaffolding, where she could only imagine his face. “I- what are you saying, exactly?”

“I don’t know how this works, let alone if it _will_ work,” the Bull said. “But I’d like to find out, if that’s okay with you.”

“It is,” Dorian said, so quietly that it almost didn’t carry down to the scaffolding. “It’s a lot more than okay.”

“Is there something else you needed?” the Bull asked, after a long enough time that she’d begun contemplating the logistics of getting down from the scaffolding without giving herself away.

“Well, I don’t suppose I could have my chair back?” Dorian asked.

“I’m not finished with it yet,” the Bull said. “Though, we could always share.”

Dorian’s response was a half-hearted frustrated growl and a near-audible eye roll.

“Suit yourself,” the Bull said. She heard the pages of a book turning, far too loudly to not be deliberate.

“Actually, there’s something else,” Dorian said.

“Oh?”

“Where have you been hiding that monocle?”

“You aren’t going to ask me why I’m wearing a monocle?”

“Well, it’s perfectly obvious _why_ \- spectacles would be a bit redundant in yo- mmph!”

She used the sound of their kissing to cover her retreat, grinning to herself all the while. It was good that _someone_ was able to work out their relationship troubles- enough to move forwards, at least.

\---

Owing to the whole demon in a box problem, there was a lack of visiting dignitaries demanding her attention. In general, this was a pleasant state of affairs, but when it came to trying to give Dorian and the Bull a little ‘alone’ time before trying to bring up the demon in a box issue again- such as it was- she was a bit pressed for things to do.

She took a turn around the courtyard, and then checked in on Cole- who had apparently left her quarters only to drop off in his own bed soon afterwards. She played a game of chess with Cullen, who was still badly distracted by his experiences with the demon and therefore lost in six moves. She spent longer listening to him speak- of guilt and fear and near-crippling doubt. Cassandra had returned to the practice dummies Dorian had abandoned- she stopped by to let her know that Cullen should be checked up on.

Then she returned to the library.

The Bull was still seated in Dorian’s chair, watching the curve of Dorian’s ass over the top of his book. Dorian himself was sorting through the books on the shelf just outside his nook, his hair slightly mussed in a way that spoke of having been very mussed and then hurriedly fixed, and smiling slightly, just enough to cause fine lines to appear around the corners of his eyes, a precursor to proper wrinkles.

He was twenty-eight. The twins would be that age in less than five years. It was weird to think that they might be developing wrinkles that soon. Hadn’t she given birth to them only a few years ago? Hadn’t they just learned to walk?

She cleared her throat, and Dorian jumped slightly. “Ah, Inquisitor! You- you actually had something you needed to talk to me about earlier, didn’t you?”

The Bull sniggered.

“Oh shut up, you menace,” Dorian said, smiling too fondly for the bite in his tone to work.

“I’m afraid so,” she told him, ignoring the byplay for the moment. “How good is your Arcanum?”

\---

She has a stack of letters locked in a safebox in her desk that she had written to her clan but never sent. Partially, this was a matter of secrecy- it was not well known that she had children or any kind of close family in Clan Lavellan, though she supposed people might have guessed. Even amongst her Inner Circle, that part of her was not universally known- though with Blackwall gone, it was really only the Bull and Sera who didn’t know. It made it sound less of a secret, spread out like that, but it wasn’t. She trusted them with her life. She trusted them with her children’s lives. She only hadn’t told the others in her Circle because there had never been a good moment to bring it up.

The other reason that the letters were sitting behind lock and key rather than having been sent was that it felt like giving in to send such information by courier. Many of these letters were personal, discussing the sort of news that really should be heard face-to-face. If she sent those letters, it would be tantamount to admitting that she wasn’t going to return to the clan to have those conversations. That she wasn’t part of the clan any longer.

She wasn’t ready to admit that might very well be the case yet. In all likelihood, she would be entirely grey and have missed the birth of several grandchildren before she admitted that. She kept the letters, even though it would make little sense to mail them now. Perhaps one day Varric would use them as an appendix for _This Shit Is Weird: The Inquisitor Lavellan Story_.

Looking back over them now, she was glad she hadn’t sent them. So many of them were about Solas- letters of introduction, really. She told the Keeper about his knowledge of the Fade, warned her of his suspicions of the Dalish and their roots. She told her children that she had met someone- an elf, not of the Dalish but as much of the People as they were- and that she hoped they would have the chance to meet him soon. There were even a few letters to her father, dating back to when he was still alive. He had died before the ball at the Winter Palace- so, a year then.

A year.

Whenever people had asked her what her plans were after she defeated Corypheus, she had told them that she didn’t have any- or, perhaps more truthfully, that she planned to sleep. She hadn’t thought she was lying, but it was obvious now that she’d made plans without meaning to: that she and Solas would leave the Inquisition in more Andrastean hands and go to her clan, and together they would help bring about a new age for the People. She had drank from the Temple of Mythal with that unspoken plan- had defended herself from Solas’ worry and anger at her actions with that plan.

_What if you wake up to find the future you shaped is worse than what it was?_

She took a deep breath, set aside her never-to-be sent letters, and set about drafting the ones she would actually send.

She didn’t get very far before Dorian burst into the office.

“Inquisitor!”

“Unless you’re on fire, you need to go back out and knock on the door before entering.”

“The box the demon came in is inscribed with a prayer to Dumat!”

For a moment she contemplated the dilemma in front of her- to deal with that pressing information or stick to her guns and try and enforce some semblance of privacy - before Dorian resolved it for her by impatiently whipping out a handkerchief and lighting it on fire.

“There, see!” He said, flicking it back out again.

Close enough. “You have my undivided attention,” she told him.

\---

Weirdly enough for a box sent to Skyhold with a sloth demon inside covered in obscure writing in a long-dead language, there wasn’t exactly a return address.

So, they went to Kirkwall.

More specifically, they went to the Vimmark Mountains, but it was pretty close to Kirkwall. Varric was not especially happy, but he still lead the way there- he had to. He was the only one of them who had been to this Shrine of Dumat before.

“Presumably there were other Shrines of Dumat lying around somewhere, but I’ve gone through every atlas we have at least thrice by now, and none of them involve shrines to any of the Old Gods,” Dorian explained.

“You don’t have any laying around in Tevinter?” the Bull asked.

“Archon Orentius had everything involving the Old Gods destroyed. Every so often some relic or another turns up, but if anyone managed to hide an entire shrine they’ve kept quiet about it.”

They were assuming Venatori, so the Shrine of Dumat where Corypheus had been imprisoned for a millennium seemed as good a starting place as any.

“Compared to what?” Varric complained.

“Exactly,” she replied. The other one, where Samson had been holed up, they’d already searched.

It very quickly became obvious that they were in the right spot, their first clue being that there were Venatori everywhere.

“They bring an Altus! Take care with his blood!” shouted one of them, which was their second clue.

“You’re joking,” Dorian said flatly. “Please, tell me you’re joking.”

“I don’t know, Sparkler, they don’t look like the joking type.”

Thankfully, they _were_ the type to die easily.

“ _Venhedis kaffan vas_!” Dorian shouted, almost before the last of the Venatori had fallen off of her blades. “What is it that makes people want to perform blood magic rituals on me?”

“You just have one of those faces, I suppose,” Varric drawled.

The inside of the Shrine of Dumat/Ancient Darkspawn Magister Prison was also lousy with Venatori and darkspawn, though thankfully there were no Venatori darkspawn in evidence.

There was a magister of a sort, however, chained under a field of containment that forced him to speak the truth, and the whole truth, or else experience excruciating pain.

“I have never considered using the Rite of Tranquility as a measure of mercy before,” she said. “I’ve never considered using the Rite of Tranquility before full stop.”

“I… understand where you’re coming from, but you may wish to stop at considering,” Dorian said. “We might find a way to undo the binding spell.”

“We’re already working on a way to undo the Rite of Tranquility,” she pointed out.

“A long and involved process which has a tendency to end in blood and tears, literally,” he reminded her.

They left him as he was, for now, at least. They had more important things to deal with: they finally knew who the leader of the Venatori was, and her name was Calpernia. She was a mage, a former slave, and someone so powerful that Corypheus had not only recruited her but feared her, enough to devise and test out this very specific form of binding to guard against her.

“What she knows- argh!- what she will know-argh!- what she might one day know. He needs that knowledge, but dares not take it for himself,” the Magisters said. “There is another, already broken to his will- the Templar. He will try first, but should he fail, Calpernia will suffer the same fate as I.”

“Samson?” Lavellan asked. “Well, at least we know where to get our next lead.”

“Cullen will be overjoyed, I’m sure,” Dorian replied.

\---

Cullen was not overjoyed. Neither was Samson, but she wasn’t sure ‘happy’ was an emotion Samson was capable of feeling anymore, if he ever had been. The man was more bitter than felandaris tea.

He still gave them something to go on- a slaver named Vicinius, living in Val Royeaux. The name stirred something in Leliana’s mind, and she left to go send word to her contacts. That left Lavellan with the pile of paperwork that had accumulated during their absence to keep her occupied that night.

Paperwork, and a bizarrely timid-looking Qunari. At least he remembered to knock.

“Can I ask you something, boss?” the Bull asked, closing the door behind him.

“Of course you can,” she told him. “You just did as a matter of fact.”

Her attempt at levity sailed between his horns and hit the far wall with a thump that he didn’t appear to hear- possibly because it only existed as part of her tortured metaphor. “How can you tell if you’re in love?”

“ _Fenedhis lasa_ ,” she cursed quietly. “I might not be the person you want to ask that question to, Bull, all things considered.”

“Well, at least you and Solas _had_ something. Varric hardly ever _sees_ Bianca, Cassandra loves vicariously, and Josephine and Blackwall didn’t ever stop pussyfooting around long enough to do anything,” he pointed out.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she did it again. She was about to do it a third time when the Bull spoke.

“I don’t know how to love. Romantically, I mean. And I’m afraid of what that means for Dorian,” he said. “He’s got a list of reasons why the two of us being…”

He frowned, clearly searching for a word to describe what they were trying to be and not able to find a fit.

“Bonded,” she suggested, because that’s how the Dalish would put it.

He grunted, accepting the term for now. “He has a list of reasons as long as my arm why that would be a bad idea. And every item on that list is the name of someone he trusted too far, or cared too much about. I don’t want this to end up hurting him. I don’t want to be on that list.”

“Just so we’re clear about this- are you looking for me to help you figure out what you’re feeling, or do you just want a point of reference?”

“I want whatever help you can give me. I don’t know what I’m doing, boss,” he repeated.

“This can’t be the first time,” she said, thinking back to what he said about never being with a mage before.

“Yeah, but every other time Dorian knew what he was doing,” he said. “With this, he has a very vague picture of what it will be if it works, and a lot of practical experience with it not working _at all_.”

“That doesn’t sound helpful,” she admitted. “Alright then.”

She thought about it- when did she know she was attracted to Solas? When did she stop listening to him because he knew so much of what had been lost, but because she enjoyed his company? When had she taken to asking his opinion on this artifact or that event as a matter of course? When had she started planning to bring him back to her clan? When did that turn to love- before or after?

“Boss?”

“Hold on, let me think.”

What about her husband? When did she know that she loved Charin? When had she _not_ loved Charin? But what had made her so sure in the first place?

“The simplest answer I can give you is that no one actually knows what they’re doing when it comes to being in love,” she said.

“Thanks, boss,” the Bull said sourly.

“The slightly more helpful version is to ask you how you know you love someone at all,” she continued. “You did tell me that Qunari love their friends.”

“That’s true,” he said. “And it’s- I’ve never felt for a friend like I do for Dorian.”

“Is it more different with Dorian than it is, say, between the way you feel about Krem and the way you feel about Dalish?”

“Yes,” Iron Bull said. “But- it’s not like Qunari never have really intense friendships. There’s- rituals, and a distinct word for it and everything.”

“Intense enough that you’re being extremely vague about the details?” she asked.

“It’s not like it’s the sort of thing you aren’t supposed to discuss with the _bas_ , but it’s very special. Personal. It’s between you and the person you’re- shit.”

“Well, the Qunari might not have sex out of love, but it does sound like you’ve got something like romance all the same.”

“Shit,” he repeated.

“Please tell me that word doesn’t translate to ‘the splendor of lost hearts’, Bull.”

“It’s ‘where the heart lies’, actually,” he said. “That’s- yeah, that’s what this feels like. Shit. He’s not going to like that.”

“Admittedly I don’t know Dorian as well as you do, but I have gotten the distinct impression that if you tell him that he’s ‘where your heart lies’ he’ll likely respond with enthusiasm.”

“Not that, the-” He cut himself off, and frowned.

“The personal stuff you should be talking to him about, not me,” she finished for him. It was weird, after hearing him speak about the curtains catching on fire because Dorian got ‘excited’, to see him so closed-mouthed about what was happening between the two of them.

“Yeah. How did I not put that together before?” he asked.

“You grew up being told that Qunari do not do romance,” she said. “And given how different things are from how I was raised and how most humans seem to go about things, I have no doubt that the way you do things is very different from what most of Thedas would consider romance.”

“True. There’s no sex in Qunari relationships,” he said.

“I assume that won’t be the case here.”

“Shit no,” he scoffed- a vocal tic she was fairly certain had been copied from Dorian’s repertoire. “Have you _met_ me? Have you _seen_ Dorian? Why would I give that up?”

She would have thought that the next step would be the Bull taking his leave to find out where Dorian had gone, but instead the man frowned and leaned forward slightly. “So, how important is the sex to romance down here?”

That, at least, she had a concrete answer for. “It depends, on the relationship, on what else is going on, and who the person is.” She hesitated for a moment, an ingrained habit from when she trusted no one in the Inquisition with the details of her family life, before plunging in. “With my husband, Charin, I can’t really remember not being in love with him. But I received my vallaslin- and therefore my standing in the clan as an adult- two years before he did. We waited until he joined me in adulthood before progressing beyond hand-holding and a few kisses. Then we fucked like crazed nugs for pretty much a year straight.”

The Bull laughed. “Only a year?”

“It might have been longer, but for the twins,” she said. “It was a difficult pregnancy, towards the end, and then an even more difficult birth. My ability to bear further children didn’t come out of that fight, but the pair of them did. Between my injuries and their colic, it took us awhile to get back into the spirit of things.”

“You’ve got children,” the Bull said, with the sound of a puzzle-piece clicking into place punctuating his words.

“Yes,” she said.

“You’re …married?”

“I’m a widow,” she corrected him. “During the Blight, the Dalish were called upon to provide troops. We hadn’t any for the last seven ages, but we provided hunters, all the same. Clan Lavellan was- still is, in spite of everything- large: we sent fifty hunters, and our First, across the Waking Sea into Fereldan. I return with myself, the First, and a half-dozen other survivors. My husband wasn’t among them.” She took a deep breath- the old anger and pain resurfacing, dulled by time just enough that her voice barely shook. “We had no idea what was in store for us- not the Fereldan Civil War, and certainly not the darkspawn. We thought it would be like defending the camp from bandits, or hunting down a rampaging great bear, not a bloody great massacre.”

“That’s why you were sent to the Conclave,” he concluded.

“Yes. Never again will the Dalish be so blind sighted. Never.” _Ir uth’din_.

She remembered how Solas looked at her after she’d revealed that part of herself, like she really had started prancing about on white steed. She still wondered what that meant moment meant, in the grand scheme of things.

Which brought her neatly back to the matter at hand. “With Solas, it started much the same way: a lot of hand-holding and closeness without sexual intimacy. We had one night, and then he broke it off. I don’t know why. He promised to explain, but…”

“That sounds like the sex was pretty important, then,” the Bull pointed out.

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anything intrinsic to the sex,” she said. “You and I both know it’s possible to have sex- really enjoyable sex- without so much as knowing the other person’s name. It’s more what sex can represent. You know, a lot of human cultures value virginity, ascribe all this symbolic importance to it, which makes sex pretty fucking important by default.” Pun very much intended. “Sex itself can be pretty intimate, and familiarity with another person can add a certain emotional depth to the experience. There’s also the possibility of children, though that’s not really applicable to either of our cases.”

“That might be what scared the _tamassrans_ off of romance, though,” he replied.

She shrugged. She didn’t know enough about the Qun to comment intelligently on what _tamassrans_ did or did not do.

“As I said, children aren’t of any particular concern in your case,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, true. Shit, even if Dorian had the right tools for the job, I’ve not sure qunari and humans _can_ interbreed.”

They each spent a moment contemplating that possibility, and then made a silent pact to never acknowledge that moment- let alone repeat it- again.

“Does that cover everything you needed to have covered?” she asked.

“Should be,” the Bull told her. “Thanks, boss.”

“No problem, Bull.”

\---

Vicinius, as Leliana confirmed, had already been more than a little murdered some months before. But they were able to view a collection of clues assembled by an enthusiastic inspector called Herc, who found the case utterly fascinating. She couldn’t say she didn’t share his enthusiasm.

“He identified Calpernia as a magister in his writings,” she noted.

“Probably she’s passing herself off as one,” Dorian replied. “An immolating offense in the Imperium, but the Imperium is a long way away.”

Besides the writings, there were several fragments of crystal whose purpose was unknown to either the city guard or any of her party. They would need to be analyzed back at Skyhold.

“But I cannot release these items! They are evidence!” Herc protested.

“Does it still count as releasing them if you come with them?” she asked. “The Inquisition could use a man of your skills.”

“You’re going to regret saying that,” called out the guardsman overseeing their meeting, an older gentlemen whose name she distantly remembered as being Andre.

“Hush,” Herc told him before turning back to her, his eyes searching her face behind his feline mask. “Would there be travel by boat? My stomach is delicate in matters of travel.”

“Only a short ride. We intended to enter the Frostbacks from the Orlesian side of the border,” she assured him.

“Then I there is nothing for it, I shall have to be sick,” he said decisively.

“Don’t worry, you can bunk with Dorian,” she replied.

Dorian made a little noise of disgust.

“Don’t worry, you can bunk with me,” the Bull said, sotto voice.

“That will not prevent me from being ill,” Dorian pointed out, correctly as it happened.

Still, once they disembarked the journey to the Frostbacks was as uneventful as any such journey they undertook- there were bears, and one giant, but they’d cleared out the Red Templars in this area some time ago, and whatever bandits might plague the area- Cullen should have a report on that waiting for her about that when they returned, shouldn’t he?- knew better than to bother a party travelling under the Inquisition banner.

Dagna was still blissed-out from her sloth demon induced visit to the Fade, and therefore her reaction to the crystal fragments was best describes as ‘squee’. It was the kind of squee that meant that she would have something spectacular for the Inquisition to use later, so Lavellan nodded, and left her to it.

It was almost surprising to find that neither Dorian nor the Bull came to her for more relationship advice during that stretch of time in Skyhold- though they didn’t seem to need it. There was something soft in the Bull when he relaxed at the tavern or sat down to play a game of Wicked Grace with them now; and for Dorian’s part, well, the man fairly glowed, and was smiling _a lot_ more often.

Had it been so obvious with her and Solas? Well, had it been so obvious with _her_ \- Solas was nothing if not inscrutable. She took some of her paperwork into the rotunda, and wondered.

It didn’t take Dagna long to figure out how to use the fragments to create what she called a memory crystal- though the crystals she’d fashioned were less vessels of memories such as the Well of Sorrows had been, but rather a method of recording and communicating sounds and images over long distances.

Mentally she made a note to ask her if she could actually record something deliberately and then have that- and only that- sent to the person of her choosing, just in case she ever got pissed off at Dorian’s parents again. There may or may not already be three supremely passive-aggressive notes ‘complimenting’ them on how wonderful their son was mixed in with the letters she was never sending to her clan, so she’d have plenty material to draw on.

 _Dorian is much loved here_ , she mused, listening to Cassandra tease him about staring ‘dreamily’ off in the distance. That was a line she’d have to ensure was present, if she ever did send such a thing.

Unfortunately for their demon in a box problem, the crystals didn’t really reveal anything about where the damn thing had come from, so they were forced to chase down every lead they had about the Venatori, hoping to find something, anything that might lead them to Calpernia.

\---

Three weeks of traipsing around the Orlesean-Nevarran border later, Calpernia found them, and promptly surrendered to the Inquisition.

“This is- we do all know this is a trap, right?” Dorian asked rhetorically, addressing the sky.

Lavellan ignored him for the moment. This was a pretty big risk for the Venatori to take if it was a trap, and if it wasn’t, if she was truly desperate enough that the Inquisition seemed a better place for her than with her own people, well…

“I’d advise you to speak quickly and plainly,” she told her.

Calpernia inclined her head in thanks, and did exactly that. “When Corypheus recruited me, he not only released me from slavery, but promised that I would be able to do the same for the whole of Tevinter. Imagine it- once we were the cradle of civilization, a beacon of culture. We could be so again, with a government excised of corruption and a people of craftsmen and wonders, standing firmly against the Qunari threat, an example for all of Thedas to look to. He promised me that he would be able to grant me the ability to bring that Tevinter to life. He promised much, and all of it was lies.”

Next to her, Dorian had gone very still. She had to admit that if this was a trap, it was very well laid.

“When did you realize?” she asked.

“When the Templars became more useful to him than the Venatori, and he began to groom Samson to be his Vessel. Samson was already a broken man- he needed no pretty lies to justify his fealty to Corypheus, and therefore Corypheus was more honest with him than he’d been with me,” Calpernia said. “I found out. I left.”

“You are no longer with the Venatori?” Cassandra asked.

“No. I gathered a group of my most trusted people and we split off. Our power has grown relative to the ‘true’ Venatori since you vanquished the Elder One, Inquisitor. We are powerful enough now that we could become as significant to the Imperium’s internal politics as they are- but as a force for change, for a new and brighter future, rather than regressing to how we were before Andraste.”

“ _That_ could have a tremendous impact, Inquisitor,” Dorian interjected. “Especially if we could force the Venatori and their supporters out into the open.”

“Something which is unlikely to happen as things stand now, as there is a spy undermining us from within our midst,” Calpernia explained. “I am spoiled for suspects. Our work has been largely thankless, and my status can most generously be described as _liberati_.” She turned slightly so that she was addressing Dorian directly. “You understand the infamy that carries, and why some might worry that their reputation might be tarnished by association.”

“That is an unfortunate truth of our homeland,” Dorian concurred with a sigh. “But surely they knew that when they signed on?”

Calpernia shook her head. “Until recently it was not well known at all.”

 _Then it’s likely that your spy brought that information to your people, rather than someone turning because they’d learned of your past as a slave_ , she thought, but did not say. There was something off about this, something orchestrated, but, despite being the obvious candidate for such, she didn’t think Calpernia was behind it.

Still, there was no reason to go about this all stupid. She had Calpernia given her own tent, and posted a guard outside it.

“You ain’t serious about believing her?” Sera asked flatly. “She’s one of Corypheus’ bleeding _tools_.”

Of course she was going to give her the benefit of the doubt. Slavery was, thankfully, not an experience she’d ever lived through firsthand, but it _was_ one that had been handed down from her ancestors. _We were once slaves, and now we are free. We are the last of the Elvhenan and never again will we submit._

What good was that if she didn’t help people reach that same promise of freedom?

That was too ‘elfy’ for Sera to accept, or for Dorian and Cassandra to understand, though she was sure the humans would smile and nod just the same. So instead she said “I thought you’d be more understanding of a little person trying to mess things up for those in power.”

Sera snorted. “Calpernia isn’t a little anything.”

“She was. Now she’s a big person trying to screw up bigger people, and having the fact that she used to belong to someone else thrown back in her face.”

The grunt Sera made in reply was less a sign of acceptance than an offer of ceasefire.

“Let’s write back to Skyhold about this. We still have her former owner, and Dagna’s memory crystals should come in handy for finding out the truth. There’s no need to take her at her word alone.”

\---

Leliana’s ravens brought back several memory crystals and word that no, Erasthenes hadn’t said anything that implied he was aware that Corypheus had already failed. Careful questioning of Calpernia lead Lavellan to believe that she hadn’t been aware that her former master was even still alive, let alone bound as he had been.

This whole thing smelled like a trap, and not just one for the Inquisition.

“I’m not the only one who gets the impression that we were supposed to kill each other, right?” she asked.

“And rid the Venatori and their ilk of two enemies at once- or at least weaken them severely,” Dorian confirmed grimly.

Cassandra made a noise that was less disgusted and more thoughtful. “So are we to presume that the sloth demon was a way to get us to Erasthenes, and set us on Calpernia’s trail?”

“Possibly. We weren’t even sure the Venatori had a unified leader, after what happened at Redcliffe,” she pointed out. “We’d never have known she was here otherwise.”

“That means the demon-mailer’s still out there, yeah?” Sera asked nervously.

“Yeah. And that we no longer know who that is,” Lavellan said, fiddling with one of the memory crystals. “Though we now have the means to find out. We just need to figure out how to use them.”

“I have an idea,” Dorian said, somewhat reluctantly. “Though I’m not sure you’ll like it. I’m not sure _I_ like it.”

“Well, I don’t have an idea of my own, so go on ahead,” she said.

He was right- she didn’t like it.

“You do remember there being some talk of using your blood in a ritual the last time we ran into the Venatori, right?” she asked.

“Yes. But with luck, hospitality will overrule that impulse for long enough to plant the memory crystals around Calpernia’s camp.”

“You want to gamble on a Venatori spy being too polite to use you as a blood sacrifice,” she checked.

“I don’t _want_ to,” he replied, exasperated. “But I feel like it’s worth the risk. As much as we all know I love to flatter myself, the truth is that at the end of the day I am a very desirable ally. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch for Calpernia to want to bring me over to her side of things.”

“And what’s going to make them believe _you_ want to go over to her side of things?” she asked.

“She wants to reform the Imperium. She wants to save it from its own corruption. Doesn’t that sound familiar?”

“ _You_ didn’t join forces with Corypheus and the Venatori,” Cassandra pointed out.

“No, I ran away from home in the dead of night with little more than my staff, the clothes on my back, and a vague idea that if I could manage to cross practically the whole of Thedas and the various warzones therein to reach Redcliffe I might be of use,” Dorian snapped. “At least she had a plan- and, when it turned out that Corypheus wasn’t going to deliver, she abandoned him. I’m not saying that makes up for things, but the situation is hardly unsalvageable.”

“That would convince me you want to work with her, if not leave the Inquisition to do so,” she said.

“I’ll just substitute ‘Inquisition’ for ‘Mother Giselle’ and rant if anyone asks about it,” Dorian told her with a dismissive wave.

They didn’t tell Calpernia about the memory crystals when they outlined the plan to her, merely saying that they wanted to plant Dorian in amongst her people in order to root her spy out. Calpernia was skeptical of this plan until she’d talked with Dorian about their respective hopes for the future of the Imperium for about ten seconds. Then she agreed that they might be able to pull it off. Lavellan still had her worries, however.

“I have a silly question for you,” she said, drawing the other woman aside. “What sort of blood magic ritual would specifically require the blood of an Altus?”

“I don’t know of any,” she said. “Why?”

“Because that’s what I want to know.”

“There are certain rituals that require the blood of a mage, and for many of them the power of the mage sacrificed enhances the spell, but there’s nothing specific to the Alti that I know of,” she elaborated. “I’m sorry, I don’t know much more. I don’t use the sort of blood magic that requires the sacrifice of another person.”

“Oh?” she asked. “I thought that was kind of the high point of blood magic.”

“The blood magic I use is mostly a matter of show,” she admitted. “Summon a few demons, and people down here panic, even if the demons themselves are weak.”

She nodded, considering. “As I understand it, the Imperium doesn’t even consider using your own blood to make you a malificar.”

“No. But we are a long way from the Imperium,” Calpernia reminded her, smiling slyly.

Dorian coughed from behind her. “Shall we?” he asked, extending his arm to Calpernia.

She moved to take it, but Lavellan intercepted her. “If you get him killed, there will be no place you can hide.”

Dorian scoffed. “I am far from helpless, Inquisitor.”

“I know,” she said, letting Calpernia go. “And if you get yourself killed, I will murder you, and then the Bull will murder us both.”

“I have no intention of dying once, let alone thrice,” he said with an eye roll, wiggling his arm a bit.

Calpernia took it, and the pair of them started to make their way back to her camp.

\---

Neither Dorian nor Calpernia got him killed, but things got a lot closer than anyone would have liked.

At first, things seemed to be going well. They made it back to Calpernia’s camp without incident, and had a meeting with her advisors that seemed to go well. Dorian spun a merry tale of how he’d smuggled Calpernia out of camp and laid a false trail suggesting that he’d been following her somewhere to the north of the Inquisition’s camp, rather than to the south where Calpernia’s lay. He would have to return sooner rather than later, but he was confident that they would believe that Calpernia shook him off and then he’d had trouble finding his way back. They had time to talk.

“Why would you want to leave the Inquisition?” one of the men on her council asked.

“Because being a member of the Inquisition is an experience rather like being clucked at by a hen,” Dorian snapped. “Everyone wants to know what I think about slavery and blood magic and oh, isn’t Corypheus one of your fellows, aren’t the Venatori Tevinter too, shouldn’t you be on their side and-”

He continued on along those lines for a while, and then continued farther. He went on and on and on until, finally, he ran out of wine and had to stop to pour himself a refill.

“So what do you think you can offer the Emendi?” asked another member of Calpernia’s group in a slightly desperate tone.

Dorian confirmed that he was the only Altus in camp- not something that was taken lightly by any of the group from what the crystal picked up, which unfortunately didn’t narrow the suspects down any. Calpernia took him on a tour of the camp, which made it obvious that they were in yet another Shrine to Dumat- seriously, how many of them were there?- and provided him with the opportunity to slip three more of the crystals into auspicious locations. The rest would have to wait until after nightfall, when Dorian slipped past the guards who’d fallen asleep and started sowing the others around.

That was when he got caught.

Once he’d been stripped down, the Emendi discovered the remaining crystals he had on his person and set about finding those strewn about the Shrine. They left Dorian alone, shivering in his smalls with his hands bound behind his back in front of Calpernia and two human men from her council.

“What was your plan?” Calpernia asked.

“I just came for the wine,” Dorian snapped. “I haven’t had a decent vintage since I left home: Skyhold’s steward is a petty-”

The man on her left raised his staff and a tongue of lightning streaked out, catching Dorian squarely in his chest. He screamed and collapsed on the floor.

“Don’t be stupid about this, Inquisition,” he said.

“Compared to what- present company?” Dorian retorted from where he was curled in upon himself. “You certainly don’t have high expectations, do you?”

“What was your plan?” Calpernia asked, interrupting her man before he could send another bolt of lightning through Dorian.

“Dinner and some late night companionship,” he spat. “Though I must say, you aren’t my type, and it’s terribly bad form to start in with lightning before watchwords are established.”

Calpernia didn’t intervene this time when her man fried Dorian again.

“What was your plan?” she asked for a third time.

Dorian didn’t respond, but she could make out his profile from where the memory crystal he’d left under Calpernia’s war table, and could see that he was glaring daggers at her.

“Maybe you’ll be more cooperative after you lose an eye,” purred the man on Calpernia’s right, reaching for the dagger on his belt.

“Wait,” said the man on her left, throwing his staff out in front of him. “I have a better idea. Why squander this opportunity to sow dissention in the Inquisition’s ranks? They will probably come after him, and what better way to plant the idea that he was cooperating with us than for us to release him after we’ve finished, for them to find him seemingly unharmed, bearing no marks?”

He walked over to Dorian and crouched down in front of him. “You’re a necromancer, just as I am. You know there are plenty of ways to hurt someone without leaving a mark.”

“Inquisitor,” Cassandra said softly, touching her shoulder. She turned around to face her. “Scout Harding says she knows a back way into the Shrine- one which will not be heavily guarded.”

“That doesn’t do us a lot of good if Dorian is heavily guarded,” she pointed out.

“He will not be.”

Behind her Dorian screamed again, and the lines around Cassandra’s face tightened. “We will provide a distraction,” she continued. “When they move to defend, you’ll be able to take advantage of the confusion and rescue him.”

“Tell us your plan,” Calpernia insisted. “This is your last chance to do this easily.”

“Fuck you,” Dorian snarled.

“Let someone else keep vigil here,” Cassandra said. “You’re needed to help plan the rescue.”

\---

As far as plans went, this one was not her best-laid one. It couldn’t be- their resources were extremely limited and time was of the essence. It wasn’t the first time she’d acted with those conditions but it had been a while- being the Inquisitor had spoiled her in some ways. She was used to having troops and agents and supplies. This was the desperate scrabbling of a cadre of hunters trying to retrieve a clansman, and that had not been her life for quite some time.

Therefore it was with a wave of something like nostalgia that she marked a fall back point for herself and Dorian, secreting a pair of health potions away just in case they were needed. For this moment, at least, she didn’t need to concern herself with politics or alliances or the end of the world. They had taken one of her people: she would get him back, and they would make a very satisfying sound when they fell.

She snuck into Calpernia’s camp before the attack started, laying a few traps here and there for later, not yet properly armed but able to become so at a moment’s notice. She took a few turns around the camp, carrying a basket of pears here, and an armful of firewood there, her hood drawn up as so many were in this camp of northern hothouse orchids, getting a feel for the place.

Sera’s opening volley came during her third pass, and in the ensuing chaos, no one noticed or paid much mind to the woman rushing headlong towards the Emendi War Table.

“Get out! After them!” Calpernia ordered. “They mean to hem us in while the bulk of their forces arrive.”

She ducked behind a corner and waited for Calpernia to move away, barking orders all the while, and caught the door to the War Room before it could fully close. The room was empty: Dorian’s things were there, but Dorian himself was not.

“Dread Wolf take them,” she growled, and then dived under the table as the door opened behind her.

She waited, sparring a glance up at the table and the place where Dorian had wedged the crystal, one hand on her dagger hilt.

“There are things here which cannot fall into Inquisition hands,” Calpernia said. “Send a third of our forces to chase them off, and have the rest hold a perimeter. I’ll join you shortly.”

The door closed. Calpernia stood at the table, very near to where Lavellan was crouching, a key dangling from her fingers practically in front of her nose.

“He’s been secured in the catacombs beneath the main altar,” the human woman said, quietly enough that for a moment she was sure the she was talking to herself. “The entrance is behind the kitchen tents, Inquisitor.” She waggled the key.

Lavellan didn’t take it just yet, but she did pry the crystal from the table as quietly as she could.

“You’re people have an outpost on the outskirts of the Western Approach,” Calpernia said, a note of impatience entering her tone. “I’ll get word to them there, assuming our spy doesn’t kill me before then.”

There was a rip in Calpernia’s robes: Lavellan quickly sunk the crystal into the lining, and grabbed the key, brushing against the human’s robe as she rolled out of her hiding spot to cover the added weight.

“When did you know I was here?” she asked.

“I guessed,” Calpernia replied. “Hurry, if you want any chance of getting your man out of here alive.”

She left. Lavellan gathered up Dorian’s things, and followed her out. In the spirit of cooperation, she didn’t kill the men guarding Dorian, knocking them out instead. Their unconscious bodies still made a very satisfying sound when they fell.

Dorian was still nearly-naked when she found him, his eyes a bit wider and his skin a tad greyer than was normal. He was also in the process of choking one of the guards against the bars of his cell door.

“Ah, there you are,” he said when he saw her, his voice rougher than usual. “I was beginning to get worried.”

The guard passed out. Lavellan unlocked the door and handed him a health potion, his robes, and his staff.

“Do we have a plan?” he asked as he tied the laces on his boots. Already he was sounding much recovered.

“Run,” she said, adding after they heard a very big boom and dust started falling from the ceiling. “Before Sera and Cassandra bring down the place around us.”

“Pithy. I like it,” Dorian said.

They ran. Sera and Cassandra did not bring down the place around them. But they were spotted shortly after they left the catacombs, which forced them to engage with the Emendi. They were outnumbered, and neither of them particularly wanted to kill these people, but that wasn’t a problem: not as much as the Well was a problem.

One of the Emendi got in a lucky hit. It wasn’t serious- it barely even slowed Dorian down- but it did make him bleed a little. No sooner did the droplets of his blood hit the stone floor beneath him than lights began to appear, floating above their heads and casting an eerie glow over the whole battlefield.

“ _Vishante kaffas_ , what now?” Dorian asked.

And all at once she knew the answer. The previous guardians, who had spoken softly since her and Morrigan’s confrontation with Mythal in the Fade, and had quieted still further when her dragon was killed, suddenly roared back to life.

_-the Lights of Arlathan to guide-_

_-only those of pure elf blood-_

_-A human?-_

_-lights are wrong they shouldn’t be so-_

_-this is wrong, this is wrong-_

_-how is this-_

_Tevinter stole much from the People, and Dorian is from there_ , she tried to placate the guardians.

The response was perhaps best described as an angry hiss.

_It was long ago- long enough that Dorian is not responsible. Especially not Dorian._

Perhaps they tapped into her memories- Dorian’s attempts to gain Solas’ approval, his awareness of how the destruction his homeland had wreaked upon her people, his status as a pariah, the reason why he left- or perhaps they were more aware of what was happening than she was.

Once she had enough control to be aware of things, she found that she’d collapsed and been disarmed. Dorian was kneeling next to her trying to get her attention with an expression of barely contained panic.

She groaned, pushing herself up into a position which could be charitably described as sitting with Dorian’s help.

“Call for a parley,” Calpernia ordered her men. “Once they discover we have the Inquisitor they will want to talk.”

For a moment she sat there, digesting this turn of events as the battle died down. The guardians hissed an answer to her: _Tevinter blood for a Tevinter deisgn, a cheap imitation of Elvhenan work._

“Blood of an Altus,” she realized. “A descendant from the ancient somniari magisters- Dreamers, just like the lords of Old Arlathan were.”

“I don’t follow,” Dorian said.

“The Venatori at the shrine in Kirkwall said ‘take care with his blood’,” she said, loudly enough for her voice to carry to Calpernia. “They didn’t want to use you as a part of a blood magic ritual- they were afraid of what your blood might reveal. That’s what this is. It shows the way to something that was hidden by the Ancient Tevinters- maybe even by Dumat’s priests, like Corypheus.”

Dorian, bless the man’s intelligence, caught on quickly. “Oh,” he said, turning around to face someone- one of the men who had tortured him before, the enemy necromancer. “What was that about not wanting to leave any marks?”

“Calpernia, I do believe we’ve discovered your Venatori spy,” Lavellan added, mostly for the benefit of the Emendi gathered around them.

Naturally, that was when the spy in question grabbed the nearest person to him and slit her throat.

“You cannot hope to defeat us!” he shouted as the blood swirled around him, empowering him, transforming him. Calpernia’s people backed away, readying their weapons: Dorian dived for his staff. “Corypheus will return! He is a god, and gods do not die!”

This time the guardians did not give her an answer so much as they showed her a means to provide one of her own.

“Yours did,” she retorted, getting to her feet. “I killed him. Would you like see how?”

The Tevinter Lights were constructs of the Fade, themselves only half in the world even with Dorian’s blood lighting them. It weakened the structure of the Veil, and between the demon-summoning, blood magic, and the recent battle it was a wonder that a Rift hadn’t opened already.

But it hadn’t. Not until she used her Mark on the Light nearest to the Venatori, spiked shards of the Veil tearing through him like paper, and the Fade itself rushing towards him, taking him apart piece by piece.

_No wonder I keep finding human writings that refer to Mythal as the Goddess of Vengeance._

With that sobering thought- her thought, and hers alone- she sealed the Rift. Calpernia’s camp had gone dead silent.

“Well?” came the sound of Cassandra’s annoyed voice from the other side of the gates barring the entrance to the Shrine. “Do you or do you not wish to parlay?”

She walked across the camp, not feeling her body so much as floating within it. No one stopped her when she opened the door.

“Actually, Cassandra, I think we have an alliance to discuss.”

\---

They were not the best negotiations ever, considering that most of the participants had been trying to kill each other less than an hour before, but it got the job done: the Emendi were allied with the Inquisition now.

“It would be foolish not to align with such power, after your demonstration,” Calpernia said.

Lavellan nodded, as though she had planned for that effect, rather than having merely lost her temper while having the knowledge of hundreds of ancient elves behind her actions.

“I am more concerned about the fact that we no longer have any leads,” Cassandra said. “Though I have doubt your disposal of the Venatori spy was impressive, he is no longer available for questioning.”

“That doesn’t make us without leads,” Lavellan pointed out, gesturing to the window behind her where the Lights were still visible.

“I understand that it’s important, but I’d really rather not spill any more of my blood here,” Dorian said. “Not without a good night’s rest and a bath, at least.”

“Why would you need to spill any more blood?” she asked. “The Lights are still going.”

One look around the room told her that the others were not aware of that.

“Sera?” she asked. “I don’t suppose you can still see them?”

“See what? They were gone by the time I got here,” Sera told him. “And why are you asking me anyway? ‘Cause I’m an elf?”

“We do see better in the dark than humans,” she pointed out.

Sera made a farting noise with her mouth.

“Well,” Lavellan said, standing up. “I think I’ll take a walk. Anyone want to join me?”

“Are you going to follow the invisible lights of elfiness?” Sera asked.

“No, I’m going to follow the Tevinter-made imitation invisible lights of elfiness,” she told her.

“Fine,” Sera moaned, standing up. “Don’t want you tripping over something cause you’re too busy looking at something that doesn’t exist.”

The others, including Calpernia, followed her without comment.

The Lights lead her down the far side of the Shrine and back underneath it.

“If they end up pointing us in that cell you had me in earlier, I shall be very put out,” Dorian said, his fingers drumming a nervous beat against his staff.

“I think we passed that a while back,” Lavellan said.

“Oh. Well, good.”

They went deeper and deeper down into the catacombs, until they finally reached a small chamber containing nothing more than a small mirror.

“An eluvian!” Calpernia gasped, causing everyone else to stare at her. “It’s like the one at the Minrathous Mouseion,” she added, turning to Dorian for help when they failed to agree with her. “Sure you must have seen it?”

“I only visited the Mouseion twice,” Dorian admitted. “And both times I was rather… distracted.”

Sera giggled.

“I’m going to regret asking this, but: what’s so funny?” Dorian asked her.

“ _Distracted_ ,” she repeated gleefully. “Was he cute?”

“Sera.”

“Was it that Really-nose guy?”

“ _Rilienus_ ,” Dorian snapped. “And shut up.”

“I have seen eluvians before,” Cassandra said. “But they were always big enough to walk through. They were made for such.”

“Really?” Calpernia asked. “I always learned that the eluvians were made to communicate over long distances.”

“That how they were used in Ancient Tevinter,” Dorian told her, determinedly turning from Sera. “It’s magic we took from the elves, and they were rather handier with it than we were.”

“That explains the lack of elven roads,” Calpernia murmured.

Lavellan ignored them, drawing nearer to the purported eluvian.

_A cheap imitation of Elvhenan work._

The guardians didn’t sound quite as sure this time around. This eluvian was newer than the others she had seen, true, but at the same time…

She drew nearer, close enough that she could make out writing in the reflection- more Arcanum _._

“Dorian, can you translate this?” she asked, pointing.

“I live in here- a place of freedom,” Dorian said.

“No,” Calpernia disagreed. “There’s a repetition mark- ‘I live in this place, this place of freedom’.”

That was a familiar construction of phrase. “I dwell in this place, a place of peace,” Lavellan said.

“No, that’s definitely not it,” Dorian said while Calpernia shook her head.

“No, but that’s how I’d translate ‘ _Andaran atish’an’_ ,” Lavellan told them. “It’s a traditional elven greeting.”

“Not half snooty, is it?” Sera remarked.

“Well it’s a very formal greeting. Less ‘how did you sleep last night Arainai’ and more ‘hello there first person I’ve seen in weeks who isn’t some kind of cousin’,” Lavellan explained.

“So what are you thinking?” Dorian asked.

_I dwell in this place, a place of freedom._

“ _Andaran revasan_ ,” she said.

The mirror was too large to step through, but never the less, she found herself in an entirely different place, where the contrast was too sharp even as the colors were muted. There was a group of elves surrounding her, Dalish such as herself. They paid her no mind.

“Let them exhaust themselves on the darkspawn’s blades,” said one, an old man whose _vallaslin_ marked him as under Mythal’s aegis. “It has already lost them the Anderfels. With luck, the horde will beat them all the way back to Minrathous.”

“And in the meantime?” asked another, a younger woman whose _vallaslin_ she didn’t recognize the meaning of. “The darkspawn already march upon Orlais. Should we abandon the Ciriane, our old allies against the Imperium?”

“Yes,” snapped the man. There was a murmur of dissent and discomfort from the other elves, and he held up a hand to quiet them. “Orlais is a human empire, full of human concerns and human follies. Do you think they would hesitate to conquer us, if they thought they might get away with it?”

“I think the desire for conquest is the nature of all empires,” the woman interrupted him. “And that every nation can become an empire. Do you advise neutrality because you are concerned for the safety of our people, or because you hope the darkspawn will create an opportunity to expand the Dales?”

“It is only because of a Blight that we have the Dales. It is only because of the rise of Dumat’s perversion. that the Imperium became a foe we could defeat,” chimed in a much younger man, marked for Andruil. “And now a Second Blight rises. Should we-”

“ _Atisha_ ,” interrupted an elderly woman- the one in charge, if the way the rest of the room fell silent was any indication. She was Elgar’nan’s. “The Dales are our _dirth_. We need nothing more, so long as the humans keep to their word. Gentlemen, save this foolishness for tourneys, or for sport: Lavellan-”

“Inquisitor!”

Cassandra pulled her back from the eluvian. She blinked, the sudden murk and return of color disorientating her.

“How bad did that look from out here?” she asked.

“Bad,” Dorian told her. “Your head unexisted for a moment there.”

“Why do you keep doing that?” Sera wailed. “You’re frigging Dalish! You’ve got the tattoo-face and the pointy-ears and everything! You drank from the Well of Elfy Demon Shite! You couldn’t be more elfy if you tried, so stop trying!”

“What happened?” Cassandra asked.

“I saw- something. Or part of something,” she told them. “About the Dales during the Second Blight.”

“I thought the Dalish didn’t fight in the Second Blight?”

She shrugged. “That’s what’s in the history books.” To be fair, the Keepers didn’t contradict the human version of events. They didn’t speak much of the Second Blight at all: the impending loss of the Dales weighed too heavily upon them.

She glanced at the mirror again. I dwell in this place…

“Does freedom mean anything in conjunction with the Second Blight?” she asked.

“Zazikel,” said both Dorian and Calpernia at once.

“Maker bless you,” Sera replied. “You both got your own hankies, right?”

“Zazikel was one of the Old Gods- the Dragon of Freedom,” Calpernia elaborated.

“He’s also commonly identified as the archdemon behind the Second Blight,” Dorian added. “So I suppose that explains the passcode- though if you were seeing information from the Dales, I wonder why it was written in Arcanum?”

She touched the eluvian, and found it had resealed itself. “That’s a very good question,” she said.

\---

Calpernia became one of her travelling companions almost by default. Though she was needed to coordinate with the Emendi, that no more necessitated she remain in Skyhold than the Bull’s leadership of the Chargers or Dorian’s research did.

“Just no blood magic,” she warned her. “Not by the South’s standards, and especially not by the Imperium’s. You’ll make the nobles nervous, which will make Josephine terrifying.”

“I understand,” Calpernia said, inclining her head.

She set herself up in Solas’ old room in the rotunda before the Inquisitor could see to getting her a space of her own. Lavellan wanted to protest, but there really was no good reason to keep the place unoccupied. She quickly became accustomed to walking in and find Calpernia lounging on the couch (or, on occasion, standing on the desk) yelling to Dorian in Tevene as he leaned down over the railing outside his library nook. It had become something of a spectator sport, as people sat in the rookery, listening to the give and take without comprehending the words.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” she asked Leliana. “Magical theory? Politics? Idle gossip? Compliments on each other’s style? Conspiracies to break into the wine cellar?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Leliana said, and somehow that refocused them on round three hundred and seventy-seven of ‘get Varric to agree to become the Inquisition’s new spymaster before Leliana becomes the new Divine’.

Josephine was kept busy, arranging all the new contacts and shoring up any frayed egos that might result from the backgrounds of their newest Inquisition members. Archon Radonis, she was informed, was _highly skeptical_ of the whole affair, which was encouraging, as many of the Inquisition’s opponents in the Magisterium had been banking on him being _absolutely livid_. She was also pursuing a few leads for more information about the Second Blight and any connection it might have to the Venatori- she mentioned a Professor Kenric in particular as possibly knowing more. There was already an obvious connection between the Second Blight and the Inquisition- the previous Inquisitor had disappeared at the beginning of it.

Josephine was positively gleeful as she informed her of these events, a fact which might have as much to do with the pressed lilies on her desk as it did the politics.

“He’s sent letters,” she confided in Lavellan, stroking her fingers over the brittle petals, but not actually touching them. “He survived the Joining, and is now a real Grey Warden. He’s promised to write, so long as I allow it.”

She seemed happy, which made her happy for her.

Things in Skyhold settled in, taking the time they hadn’t been able to take when Corypheus was breathing down their necks. Varric was slowly but surely wearing down on the issue of his possible promotion. Cole was learning how to tell when he needed to eat and sleep with an enthusiasm that had escaped many a child. Cullen remained a free man and an example to former Templars everywhere. Dorian was smiling so often now that it was odd to think of how usual it had been for him to merely smirk in bitter, detached amusement. The Bull had always seemed happy and secure, but there were subtle, positive changes there as well: an ease in the way he carried himself, a more relaxed smile.

Her letters to her children, and the Keeper, and the Clan in general stayed on her desk, barely begun let alone sent.

She could not, in good conscious, leave the Inquisition. She could not, in good conscious, leave the Inquisition’s people- her people, her friends. But neither could she stay away from her family or the People indefinitely. She missed them. She missed them all.

Would they accept it if she told them that she might never step down from being the Inquisitor? Would they come join her if she asked?

It should be such a simple thing, she mused as she guided her halla through the Emerald Graves. Saplings were spread as far as the eye could see, and her guardian wolf watched from his place at her side, his eyes alert and wise.

She adjusted the staff on her back a little as the terrain became rougher, slowing her halla with a few gentle clicks and a touch to the reins.

There had been so much destruction, and with it so much change. The death of her brother and everyone else at the Conclave, the ascension of Briala as the Marquise of the Dales, the new government her Keeper had formed in Wycome, the discovery of the truth behind the Massacre of Red Crossing...

It was late. There was no sense in her exhausting herself. She had a long way to go and nothing but time.

Halamshiral. It was behind her now, behind everyone, never again to be the end of the elves’ journey.

Some nagged at her, but there was no sign of danger, and her guardian remained alert but not tense. She dismounted, setting up a lean-to in the shelter of one of the few old trees in the area. The river was nearby: she went to refill her waterskin.

She dropped it in shock. The face that was reflected back to her was not her own.

She was Lavellan, as in Inquisitor Lavellan, as in the Huntsmaster of Clan Lavellan, War Leader and Spy for Clan Lavellan, but not this _Lavellan_ …

The waterskin sank to the bottom of the river, and eventually the surface cleared itself of ripples, allowing her a good look at the face she was wearing.

The woman who looked back at her was perhaps ten years her junior, in her early thirties. Her skin was darker than her own- darker even than Vivienne’s, with hair that matched. Her vallaslin was in a design she didn’t recognize- no, the design she recognized from the eluvian- an imitation of fangs and sweeping lines across her cheeks and brows and along her nose, elongating her face in an almost lupine fashion.

When Lavellan, the Inquisitor, had received her vallaslin, she’d insisted that the Keeper mix her blood with pigment to match her eyes. Lavellan, the Emerald Knight, was marked in pure white, though her eyes were the same green shade as her own.

The exact same shade, as it happened.

She turned. Her guardian, the wolf, had vanished, as had the halla. Solas stood by the camp instead, looking unsure of his welcome.

“This is the Fade,” she checked. He nodded, so he continued. “A memory, from… Lavellan?”

“The founder of your clan,” he confirmed, smiling slightly. “This is her memory, of the fall of the Dales. There are other survivors, of course: Mahariel, Sabrae, Alerion, Ralaferin…”

She turned back to her reflection, but it was her own face that looked back at her. She traced the lines she’d refused to allow him to remove, the ones that marked her as under Dirthamen’s aegis, and then tried to recreate the lines she’d seen before. “Did we forget the origin of the _vallaslin_ before we forgot Fen’Harel was anything but the Betrayer?”

“It seems that way,” he said, moving cautiously towards her. “It’s almost funny, in a way: the _vallaslin_ for Fen’Harel had to be invented in the Dales to have ever existed at all. In Old Arlathan, followers of Fen’Harel would remove the _vallaslin_ of rebelling slaves, as a mark of freedom.”

And there was freedom again.

_I dwell in this place, this place of freedom. Zazikel, the Old God, Dragon of Freedom._

What did it all mean?

“This still isn’t an explanation, you know,” she pointed out.

“No,” he said, uncertainly. “It’s a start.”

“Of what?” she asked, as patiently as she could.

“I- cannot possibly explain what I have done. Not until you know the truths I know. Nothing makes sense out of that context. And so much of the context is not merely new, but things you are aware of but only as twisted reflections viewed through a broken mirror.”

“The eluvian,” she realized.

He cocked his head to one side inquisitively.

“That’s how we’re both able to be here, in this part of the Fade, even though you’ve left Skyhold,” she said. “You’re using the eluvian.”

“Yes,” he said, looking as uncomfortable as she’d ever seen him on this side of the Veil.

All at once she realized that she’d had it wrong. When she went to see him in his place in the rotunda- and when she remembered her reasoning as she listened to Dorian and the Bull work out their differences- she hadn’t been taking it to his space after all. His space was the Fade, where he found things easier to do.

“We have time for explanations, so long as they eventually come,” she told him.

“I must ask that you not look for me,” Solas said with an edge of desperation in his tone. “What lies on the other side of the eluvian is not to be trifled with, even I don’t know what the consequences-”

She reached out for him, and he cut himself off, staring down at their joined hands in confusion.

“We have time,” she repeated gently. “And so long as you come to me, I can resist the temptation to come after you.”

She kissed him, their joined hands held between them.

“I-” Solas said when she’d pulled away, one hand coming up to stroke her face. “I’m afraid that we don’t have time. Not in this particular moment- though there will be others.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You’re waking up.”

\---

She started upright, a bit of parchment that had become stuck to her check fluttering free of her and landing on the floor as she did so.

There was a pounding on her office door.

“Inquisitor!” Dorian called. “I’m knocking in an effort to respect your privacy, but so help me-”

She stretched, and stood, opening the door.

“There you are!” Dorian chided. He gave her a quick once over and then added in a much more sheepish tone. “And you were asleep.”

“Sort of,” she admitted, yawning.

“I’m an ass,” he said, turning to leave.

“And I’m awake _now_ ,” she retorted, grabbing him by the shoulder. “Come in and say your piece, Dorian.”

Dorian entered but remained silent, closing the door behind them and settling down in the chair opposite her own. She sat down across from him and waited.

“I cannot believe these words are about to leave my mouth,” he said finally. “But I find myself in desperate need of a high dragon to hunt.”

She waited. When it became clear that there was no more information coming she prompted him with “I don’t suppose you could tell me why?”

“You suppose correctly,” Dorian told her, a blush creeping steadily up to his roots and down his neck as she watched.

Oh. Of course dragons were hunted as part of the whole Qunari romance process. Or maybe that was just the Ben-Hassrath? She was having trouble imagining two bakers deciding that each was where the others’ heart lay and then hunting a dragon to prove it.

Maybe the Bull had decided whatever the Qunari did was too weird and made something up.

“Well?” Dorian snapped.

“I honestly don’t know if we left any high dragons alive in Orlais or Fereldan,” she said.

“Ah. Right.”

“But if they ever let us into Nevarra, or one shows up in the Marches, you’ll be the first to know,” she offered.

He nodded, and remained sitting.

“Anything else on your mind?” she asked.

“Naturally,” he replied.

“Anything that you wanted to talk to me about specifically?”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I- look, I know you have more important things to deal with than my personal life, but I really don’t know where else to go.”

“You can talk to me, Dorian,” she reminded him.

“It’s- in every other attempt I’ve made at something like a long-term relationship, I’ve been the one who cares more. It’s not as tragic as that probably sounded: two men in Tevinter… generally, you look after your needs, he looks after his, and if you care about his at all you care more than he does.”

“That sounds unpleasant,” she remarked.

“It’s not a nice sensation, certainly,” he said. “But you learn to make do with what you can get. There’s not much in way of opportunities for such things, after all.”

“Not in Tevinter.”

“Not in Tevinter,” he agreed.

“A state of being we both currently share,” she pointed out.

“Yes. Well,” he said. “What if- what if I’m not the one who cares more here? What if the Bull cares more for me than I’m capable of caring for him?”

It was so similar to the fears the Bull had voiced here that she almost laughed, and then she almost broke her confidence with the man and told Dorian about their conversation.

Thankfully, good sense won the day, and she went with “Dorian, you and the Bull are very different people. You come from different cultures, you’ve had different lives, and you _are_ different, independent of the things that shaped you. The Bull might have an easier time being affectionate, and it might be more obvious that your relationship makes you happy, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect your emotions, or even your ability to communicate them.”

“What do you mean it’s more obvious that I’m happy?” Dorian asked, sounding offended.

“This is first time I’ve seen you not smiling all week,” she told him. “With the Bull- he already was an easygoing guy, or projected that image. It’s deeper now, though. He’s more relaxed- I think you took some kind of tension away.”

“Oh,” Dorian said quietly.

“Listen, if you’re worried that the Bull might feel unappreciated, you should talk to him. And if I could say something you aren’t going to like?”

“I don’t see why you should stop to ask permission now,” he grumbled, though he nodded slightly.

“You spend a lot of time pretending to enjoy being on your own and that you don’t care, and you fool only the people who don’t bother getting to know you,” she told him. “You care, very deeply, about a lot of things. You just also have some kind of expectation that your caring will be used against you. The Bull knows this. Try and work around it, and he’ll appreciate the effort, I’m sure.”

Dorian nodded absently: it was obvious that he was already plotting something.

“Does that help?” she asked.

“Yes, actually, it does,” he said, standing. “Thank you, Inquisitor.”

\---

When she next sat down to write to her clan, she didn’t bother looking back over her previous unsent letters, but simply put quill to parchment and wrote.

To the Keeper, she sent a formal invitation to discuss the growing influence of the Dalish- and elves in general- throughout Thedas. She’d have Josephine go over it- this was a matter that had to be handled delicately, so as not to spook the humans, to say nothing of her own people’s egos. Her own Keeper would be relatively easy to persuade: to even speak with the other Keepers at once would require calling an Arlathvhen. Still, if things went well, then maybe they could arrange some kind of meeting with some prominent members of the city elves. Marquise Briala would be of particular interest, given her control over the Dales, and closer to Skyhold, there was Bann Shianni to consider.

She remembered Shianni from the Blight. The city elf had shot a genlock off her back once- it was an impressive shot, especially considering that they had completely lost anything resembling a defensive line at that point.

That was the easy letter to write, because once she had it written she could let herself be distracted by all manner of official concerns and personal reminisces. But eventually she could procrastinate no longer.

_~~Da’len,~~ _

No, no. Her children were grown, and she would address them as such.

_~~My Dearest~~ _

Creators, she sounded like a human. Maybe she should skip over salutations entirely?

_My Loves,_

That, at least, sounded right.

_I am sorry for not writing directly to you sooner. At first, I was worried for your safety; then I simply had very little to discuss that wasn’t best said face to face. That is still the case, but I despair of leaving the Inquisition for long enough to visit you in Wycome. The truth of the matter is, I feel I can do much good for the People as the Inquisitor, and the people of the Inquisition have grown dear to me._

Once she had written the words, she felt as though a weight had been lifted from her chest. Yes. This was where her future lay.

_Still, it has been far, far too long since we have seen one another. I have asked the Keeper to come on official business, but even if she does not come, or puts off her visit, I should like the two of you to come to Skyhold as soon as you can. There is much I have to tell you, and I’m sure you have much to tell me. It will be good to see your faces again._

She’d send these letters off with Loranil. He’d be as discrete as any Inquisition agent could reasonably be expected to be with information about her personal life. Which, honestly, wasn’t much.

Well, it wasn’t like people wouldn’t find out about her children when they arrived.

\---

She’d just handed the letters off when a rock masquerading as a cookie shattered against the wall by Loranil’s head.

She sighed and waved him away.

“You could have actually hurt him with that, you know,” she called.

Sera slunk down from the tree she was in. “Sorry. They came out harder than usual. No harm done, yeah? And you’re finished with being elfy, right?”

“Oh no I’ve just gotten started.”

Sera blew a raspberry at her.

“I’ve invited my children to come visit,” she elaborated.

“Your what?”

“My children.”

“You’re a mother? More than once?”

“Twins,” Lavellan said, wiggling two fingers up in the air.

“How old are they?” Sera demanded.

“They’ve just turned twenty-four.”

“How old are you?”

Lavellan merely laughed.

“Andraste’s tits. And here I thought His Elfiness was a dirty old man.”

“Well, to be fair, I think Solas might have been born a thousand years old,” she confided.

Sera laughed, and fell into step beside her.

“So what are they like, your kids?” she asked.

“Nehurai is a lot like Cole.”

“Creepy?”

“Gentle. Caring. He’s not very good with people- he doesn’t spend much time around them- but amazing with halla. And my daughter, Edrei … well. Depending on how much a deal breaker being a Dalish mage is, you’re either going to hate her, or elope on a whirlwind tour of nobility-scaring anarchy that Varric will have to tame down to put in his book.”

Or just elope in general.

 _That_ was a thought she regretting having the minute it formed in her head.

“When are they getting here?” Sera asked.

“I don’t know- I’ve just sent the note ten minutes ago,” she reminded her. “Loranil’s good, but even he can’t get to Wycome and back in that amount of time.”

“Well, give me some warning when they come, so I know to expect more elfiness,” Sera said.

It was early enough in the morning that there were few people milling around. Cassandra was already at her practice dummies; Vivienne was taking advantage of the relative peace to do some reading outdoors. Dorian, she saw, was dashing across the courtyard from the baths to the tavern, wrapped up in a bathrobe and sandals, and little else.

She took a deep breath. Yes, this was where she wanted her future to be.

This was where she wanted the People’s future to be made.

“I can do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out the fabulous [art](http://skyreigns.tumblr.com/post/119784526880/these-are-the-pieces-i-have-done-for-this-years) done for this fic! Like and reblog because SHE DREW BULL IN A MONOCLE!!!


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